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The Gay Guide to Glee: Episode 12, "Mattress"

Sometimes, being VF’s Fun & Faggy Editor causes conflicts. For example, I’m currently in L.A. covering the Auto Show for my other role as our certified gay car guy and thus had to stay out chugging vod and downing seared ahi sliders with automotive editors and Volvo P.R. folks until 4:00 a.m. meaning I missed the broadcast version of the world’s gayest program. But I’m not one to shirk my duties, so I spent the hour between whenever I got back to my hotel, and whatever bleary time succeeded it, rehydrating and viewing Glee on Hulu. And boy am I glad I did. Though it got off to a slow start with more hollow claptrap about Sue’s vanity and Emma’s wedding, the end-up could only have been more electrifying if the entire cast had been conducting the final high-kicking, gold lame-suited, arms-linked “One Singular Sensation” scene from A Chorus Line, and one of them accidentally landed a jazz hand in a breaker box. I’m talking FIREWORKS, bitches. There were two worthwhile story lines, both of which featured the revealing nature of the artfully constructed image.Yearbooking

A number of people have complained to me that the show seems to be moving through the school year, and its related plotlines, with all the alacrity of a one-legged asthmatic marathoner. My insider expertise reveals this as intentional. If you’re making a show about kids, you’ve got to take it slow, or you end up pulling a Cosby, sending everyone off to college, and finding yourself left with bubkas. So here we viewers are in real life early December, following the kids through the real life early December ritual of having their yearbook pictures took. Rachel obviously loves the opportunity to snag the spotlight (“It’s good practice for the paparazzi.”) But the other Glees have a righteous trepidation over being included in the group shot, mostly because they fear their fellow classmates will deface their likenesses by adding fake toucan beaks, re-styling them with mullets, drawing in penises where penises ought not to be (in Kurt’s ear, under Finn’s armpit, anywhere near Rachel), or x-ing out their eyeballs like some Sharpie-wielding undead too cheap to give Charon his pennies.

Through a series of plot twists I (or perhaps the writers) were too drunk to comprehend, the Glees collective refusal to have their inner souls stolen by Kodak’s magic box means that they a) raise Sue’s ire to the point where she once again wants to destroy the team, b) are vampires, though apparently not the kind in New Moon, who appear throughout the film in gorgeous color snapshots or c) don’t exist, which, in a social sense, is closest to the truth. As far as I can tell, this results in their having to purchase an ad in order to be included in the yearbook. Why they don’t just hold another pot cupcake sale I don’t know. (It would be a good excuse to bring that lecherous drama teacher and his delicious knotted pastel sweaters back on set.) Wait! I do know. Because if they did that, they wouldn’t get invited by a local Sleepy’s to perform in a mattress commercial, to the tune of Van Halen’s “Jump”. I’ve never been as transfixed by a grouping of nubile young people writhing around on a bed with their clothes on. I’ve replayed the scene numerous times, and I can’t stop smiling. (I also can’t stop searching for a moment, just a single frame will suffice, when one of the kids’ costumes malfunctions and you can see some pubes or their butt crack.)

In the end, the Glees triumphantly agree to have their shiny faces documented for posterity. And the episode closes with the entire school triumphantly learning a lesson about inclusion and acceptance. That’s not true. It ends with them all drawing toucan beaks, mullets, and penises on our perky troubadours.

Baby Bumping

Brothers and sisters, can we praise Adonis, Osiris, Lakshmi, Xochipilli or whatever fertility god reads this column? Our prayers have been answered! While searching for something to wear for his school picture, Will discovers Terri’s fake baby bump pad, and whatever sinking suspicions of parturient hysteria have managed to permeate his conked Jew-fro over the past few episodes finally reach the cerebral cortex and he realizes the bitch has been faking it. He freaks and gets a little O.J. on her, which I don’t find flattering or titillating. (I’m against spousal abuse, unless it’s consensual.) But the outcome is positive: he moves out and spends the night in the Glee room on some of the free mattresses the kids get in place of residuals. He even talks about the split with Emma, thus rekindling her undying stalker flame, and setting us up for them to mash in next week’s explosive half-season finale. Who else will finally hook-up, detonate, or pull a Columbine? As this show has repeatedly proven, anything can happen.

• “Jump” (Van Halen”****** Flawless. A hysterical and properly juvenile bed-bouncing re-imagining of the tune’s lyrical literality. Bonus star for it almost being sexy. (Maybe if I just watch one more time.)

• “Smile” (Charlie Chaplin) ** Enough with the bland ballads. Can we have a little more action and provocative dancing in the finales, please? The obvious contrast with the sadness of the situation (barely) rescues it from being a one star song.

Gayest Moment

• Will hunting for his “pocket square” as he preps his yearbook outfit. I only wish it was an ascot.